[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14326-H14328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          INCREASING PENALTY FOR ESCAPING FROM FEDERAL PRISON

  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 1533) to amend title 18, United States Code, to increase the 
penalty for escaping from a Federal prison.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 1533

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled, That 
     section 751(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 
     striking ``five'' and inserting ``10''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. McCollum] will be recognized for 20 minutes, and the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] will be recognized for 20 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
   Mr. Speaker, this bill is simple and noncontroversial, and yet it 
makes an important improvement to Federal criminal law. As Federal law 
enforcement has increased its attack in recent years on serious violent 
criminals and major drug traffickers by imposing long prison sentences 
on these most dangerous offenders, the penalty for escaping from prison 
and other forms of Federal custody has not increased in a corresponding 
manner.
  This presents a risk to the safety of Federal employees who work for 
the Bureau of Prisons, the Marshals Service, and the other enforcement 
agencies charged with maintaining the custody of persons convicted of 
Federal crimes. H.R. 1533 fixes this problem.
  This bill was introduced by the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 
Bryant]. I want to commend him for having the idea and for his 
initiative.
   Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant] so that he may explain his bill.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the 
opportunity today to speak on behalf of H.R. 1533, a bill which I 
introduced earlier this year. I especially thank the distinguished 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
McCollum] for his help in moving this legislation to this point of 
consideration for the full House of Representatives.
  H.R. 1533 would simply double from 5 years to 10 years the maximum 
penalty that Federal escapees can receive. The penalty applies to all 
escapees and attempted escapees who are in the Attorney General's 
custody. Therefore this penalty would apply to those who escape or 
attempt to escape from a Federal prison, from the custody of the United 
States marshals while in transit or from a halfway house or from other 
non-Federal facilities such as a private prison or local jails.
  I might add that the National Sheriffs' Association supports this 
bill because of that.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to raise the penalty for escaping from 
Federal custody. Currently a Federal escapee faces a maximum of 5 years 
in jail. Of course, due to the sentencing guidelines, he received the 
5-year maximum penalty.
  There are two primary reasons why such an increase is necessary and 
needed at this time. First, it would serve as a greater deterrent to 
those people who would be thinking about attempting to escape from 
jail, and second, it would maintain the alignment, a better alignment, 
if my colleagues will, with today's longer-based sentences. Federal 
prison escapes are up, and they have been going up since 1992 when over 
550 Federal detainees jumped the fence, or held up a guard, or smuggled 
themselves out by way of a trash truck, did whatever they had to do to 
break out, break away from, the law and creep back into the society to 
resume their unlawful and in too many instances violent ways. That 
number has continued to increase to around 600 escapees in 1993 and up 
to 660 escapees last year.
  A Federal marshal and a court security officer have already been 
killed in one of these attempted escapes in a senseless and intolerable 
act of misbehavior. This occurred in Chicago under circumstances that I 
happened to be in that city that day on business and followed that case 
very closely where a man in transit by a marshal in a Federal 
courthouse in the parking garage part somehow came into possession of a 
key to handcuffs and escaped and overcame the guard, the marshal that 
was accompanying him, took the gun and shot that marshal as well as 
another court security officer, certainly an example of a tragic 
incident where we need better and tougher laws against people who make 
attempts to escape.

                              {time}  1745

  Overall, to their credit, the U.S. Marshals Service has already done 
an outstanding job of handling these cases successfully, recapturing 
nearly 500 of the 660 prisoners who have escaped. But tracking these 
criminals certainly is not easy, let alone a criminal who has escaped 
and is trying to hide out. When an individual knows they are being 
pursued, just finding out where they are can cost literally hundreds of 
hours of investigative work and cause quite a few headaches. This 
successful record that the marshals have still leaves over 150 escapees 
from 1994 still out on the streets committing more crimes.
  I mentioned earlier the consequences and the risks of escaping. Let 
us consider exactly what those consequences are and then ask ourselves, 
are these 

[[Page H14327]]
consequences working to deter people from trying to escape? Under 
current law, the maximum penalty which can be administered to a Federal 
escapee, either caught trying to escape or caught after escaping, is 
the 5 years, as I mentioned earlier. Five years, Mr. Speaker, as we all 
know, due to the sentencing guidelines, few of those actually caught 
either after they have escaped or attempting to escape would actually 
receive this full maximum of 5 years.

  I ask the question: Are the current penalties for escaping from 
Federal custody strong enough? I do not believe so. I do not think that 
when some Federal prisoners are sitting in the back of a squad car or 
in a transport van or sitting in their jail cells thinking about making 
a break for it; I do not think they are thinking about what would 
happen to them if they got caught. If those who escape or are trying to 
escape are thinking about it, then we are certainly not deterring them 
from it. The latest most current penalties must not be working, at 
least not for these particular people. If they are not thinking about 
what may happen to them if they are caught, then we definitely need to 
give them something more to think about.
  Mr. Speaker, it is past time to raise the stakes for escaping from 
Federal custody. When this bill passes, it will not take long for the 
word to circulate among the jails and the prisons in the county, jails 
where some of these Federal inmates are kept, about this increase in 
punishment and the higher risks that they will get caught up in if they 
attempt to make a break. The penalty will be doubled, and they will 
understand that.
  There is another reason why we need to pass this bill. That is to 
stay consistent with the much tougher penalties we have already put in 
place for other crimes due to the tougher sentencing guidelines and due 
to the mandatory sentence. Quite frankly, a lot of these people in jail 
who are serving the longer sentences that we are getting today are not 
much deterred, are not much affected by the fact that they might risk 
another 1 or 2 years on the already long jail sentence, so it is worth 
the risk to them to attempt to escape.
  What we are doing by doubling the punishment is, again, raising the 
stakes and making it more of a serious threat to them and a deterrent 
to them, because when they try to escape it is not just simply a matter 
of scooting out the back door, running away and hiding in society. Very 
often they injure people, they hurt people, as I mentioned in the 
incident in Chicago, where two completely innocent people doing their 
jobs were shot dead by this person. So it is a problem that actually 
does need to be addressed at this time.
  One might say, though, ``Well, rather than approaching it from this 
end, why not just simply tighten up the security at the Federal 
prisons?'' Our Bureau of Federal Prisons, our Bureau of Prisons, those 
folks like the U.S. marshal are doing a tremendous job, but most of the 
Federal escapes do not occur out of the Federal prisons. As it was 
pointed out earlier, the U.S. Marshals have to transport these 
prisoners back and forth, sometimes as witnesses, sometimes as 
defendants in their own case. They have to be brought all around the 
country, sometimes, in airplanes and vehicles to courthouses; again, as 
in Chicago, the gentleman was being escorted out the Federal building 
in the courthouse and back to the jail.
  Many of these Federal prisoners are also kept in State and local 
jails and in private penitentiaries where security might not be an 
strong as the BOP, the Bureau of Prisons, on the federal level. This 
bill addresses those types of prisoners, too. it might be because the 
county jail is overcrowded, or that they are in a minimum security 
temporary holding facility. Resources, quite frankly, are just limited. 
It makes it easier for some of these folks, again, to risk the 
additional 1 or 2 years they might get to going over the fence and 
actually probably hurting somebody while they do that.
  This is where the brunt of the problem is. Mr. Speaker, it is our 
responsibility as a Congress to set a reasonable penalty in place as an 
effort to reduce the number of escapees from increasing every year with 
our ever-growing prison population. The fact is we must point our 
escape policy in a different direction than where the increasing number 
of escapees have pointed it over the course of the next 4 years. 
Doubling the current 35-year penalty, I believe, is the correct 
starting point.
  Finally, let me add, the Department of Justice supports this bill 
because of the reasons I have just outlined. A letter from the 
Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs says the Department 
of Justice considers any criminal offense committed during 
incarceration to be egregious, particularly escape attempts.
  I am also pleased to have the bipartisan support from many of my 
colleagues who have supported this legislation, and it passed out of 
the Committee on the Judiciary by a voice vote overwhelmingly.
  In closing, I want to add my personal thanks to a deputy marshal in 
Memphis, TN, who worked with me when I was U.S. attorney there, Deputy 
Marshal Scott Sanders, who suggested this idea to me, to double the 
penalty there.
  Finally, I would urge my colleagues to vote in support of H.R. 1533, 
as it represents another brick in the wall toward restoring law and 
order in America. I urge its passage.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to first commend the gentleman from Tennessee 
[Mr. Bryant] for offering this legislation to begin with. I do not want 
to make but a couple of comments, and then I will let the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Schumer] say his piece on this bill.
  I think all of us know that dangerous criminals understand the 
Federal criminal justice system is much tougher than the State systems. 
We have broad pretrial detention authority, we have mandatory minimum 
sentences for serious drug trafficking crimes, crimes involving 
firearms, and we have no parole. Criminals do not want to be prosecuted 
in the Federal system. A lot of them are pretty tough-looking criminals 
who break down and even cry. I would like to see the States have those 
same types of tough laws.
  Because the Federal system is so tough, there is a real risk, as the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant] says, that desperate offenders 
will attempt to escape. No matter what the professionalism of our 
skilled law enforcement officials who are doing a difficult job, 
anytime it happens, public servants and law enforcement personnel are 
at great risk, so I believe this additional penalty for escapes is very 
important. I am very proud to support the gentleman's bill that is out 
here today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. SCHUMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. This bill, 
as has been stated, increases the maximum penalty for escaping from 
Federal prison from 5 to 10 years. I strongly support it, and it was 
strongly supported by the Department of Justice.
  There may be lots of disagreements in this Chamber about basic crime 
strategies, but in my judgment there is little room for disagreement 
about the danger that prison escapes present. Prison escapes threaten 
correctional staff, they threaten the communities in which the 
correctional institutions are located, they threaten the inmates who 
may be caught up in a given escape scenario.
  Although this Congress has steadily increased underlying penalties 
for many crimes--something, in my judgment, that has a good deal to do 
with the decrease in crime rates we are seeing; I know some say one has 
nothing to do with the other, but I do not believe that; I know in my 
State it has had an effect and it is going to have an effect in places 
all over America--we have not increased the penalty for prison escape.
  This has led to a situation in which, speaking relative to the 
possibility of punishment, escaping is becoming a low-risk proposition. 
This bill corrects that situation by making the penalty more severe, 
and in the judgment of the Department of Justice, severe enough to 
substantially discourage escape attempts.
  Before I conclude, I want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 

[[Page H14328]]
  Bryant] for his diligence in pushing this bill through. It is a needed 
bill, and I do not know if this is the first bill the gentleman is 
passing on the floor of the House, but I congratulate the gentleman, 
whatever bill it is; it is his first one, so I congratulate him on this 
landmark occasion in his long and distinguished career.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, with all of the problems facing our prison 
system today--a system which has proven to be a breeding ground for 
more serious crime--what the majority sends us is a bill increasing the 
penalties for escaping from prison. And instead of explaining why such 
a bill is necessary, we hear that the problem is that the judges don't 
give stiff enough sentences.
  H.R. 1533 responds to a non-existent problem. I am unaware of any 
great rash of prison breaks. In 1993 for example, only 6 people escaped 
form Federal prisons, 197 people were considered walk aways--people who 
did not return to halfway houses.
  Prison officials are not clamoring for this change in the law. this 
increased penalty is unnecessary. It is ridiculous to think that 
potentially higher sentences will deter attempts to escape from prison. 
Those individuals who attempt such escapes are not thinking about the 
penalty for getting caught, because they do not think they will get 
caught. If they thought they would be caught, they wouldn't try to 
escape in the first place.
  There is no way to characterize legislative proposals such as this 
other than whistling past the graveyard. Just last week the Justice 
Department released a startling midyear report showing that the 
incarceration rate in this country had reached an all-time record of 
1.1 million people. The number of prisoners grew by 90,000 people last 
year--another all-time record. The incarceration rate in this country 
is higher than any other country in the world and is 8 to 10 times 
higher than other industrialized nations.
  And the racial make up of our prison population is even more 
striking. Last year some 33 percent of black men in their 20's were in 
prison or on parole. This contrasts with the rate for white men, which 
was 6.7 percent. Why are such an increasing number of African-Americans 
serving more time in prison? The Sentencing Project concludes that 
``the statistics primary reflected changes in law enforcement policies 
that have resulted in a greater number of defendants receiving prison 
sentences, especially prison sentences, rather than an increase in the 
number of crimes committed by black men.''
  So instead of trying to deal with the very real, very serious 
problems which face our prisons--like the problem of a disparity in 
crack cocaine sentences--we will be voting on a bill to increase 
sentences for attempted escapes from prison. The bill we are 
considering today is a complete waste of time. I only wish the majority 
would spend half as much time on the real problems facing our prisons 
as they do trying to score political points by acting tough on crime.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). All time has expired.
  The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Florida 
[Mr. McCollum] that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 
1533.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________